Friday, January 03, 2014

Telling the Story

“It felt good to tell it, in a way. Because it was his story, his and his alone, nobody else’s. And in telling it he gained a sort of control over it he had never had when it happened. That was the value of telling one’s story, a value exactly the reverse of the experience itself. What was valuable in the experience was that he had been out of control, living moment to moment with no plan, at the mercy of other people. What was valuable in telling the story was that he was in control, shaping the experience, deciding what it meant, putting other people in their proper place. The two values were complementary, they added up to something more than each alone could, something that... completed things.